4/06/2006 @ 5:40PM

Apple's Jobs And Beatles To Hear Ruling After Easter

All good things: Apple Computer has had a tough time proving itself on the continent of Europe lately. There’s been the threat of splicing the iTunes/iPod relationship in France, and in the U.K.’s high court, further lambasting from hip virtuosos The Beatles. But the ebb and flow of being down a certain creek spells a welcome lull in all the hostilities every so often.

Now that the lawyers for both
Apple Computer
, led by Chief Executive
Steve
Jobs
Steve Jobs
, and Apple Corps, the music company founded by the Fab Four, have already squared off in the closing stages of their much publicized trial, it’s time for the judge to reach his verdict. Both the accused and the accusers, along with the rest of the tech world, will spend the next week bereft of any developments in this war of the black turtlenecks: the High Court judge is unlikely to make his ruling before Easter.

On the chance that for the last several weeks you have been living on the planet Zog, or even in a Yellow Submarine, here are the key gripes in the trial over the logo of a sharp-tasting fruit: In one corner, Apple Corps’ lawyer Geoffrey Vos has branded Apple Computer a “Johnny-Come-Lately” for attempting to steal the British company’s trademark and increasingly encroaching on its territory of the music business.

In the other corner, Apple Computer’s lawyer Anthony Grabiner has said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company was doing nothing wrong and music lovers were smart enough to tell the difference between the use of the two logos, according to The Associated Press. Apple Corps had sued its near-namesake for breaching, via its iTunes Music Store, a 1991 trademark agreement to stay out of the music business. As well as damages, it now wants Jobs to stop using the omnipresent logo of the tangy pomme on iTunes and ads for the site.

We’ve ample faith in the U.K. coporate justice system, even if the judge does own one of those ubiquitous iPods. Here’s hoping at least, that we don’t wait till the next public holiday for an end to this latest Apple debacle. More…